The Corner Office MBA: The Value of Mistakes

By John Collins

All driven, ambitious individuals set goals. I doubt many use the word “failure” in a list of those business or personal goals. That is a mistake. It ignores the value of screwing up, of trying something new, or innovative, or untried, or “crazy” and not immediately succeeding. It does not recognize the value of mistakes.

Few disregard the worth of a formal education. Learning generally has a well deserved reputation for value on its own -- try getting a gig at Goldman Sachs without your name on a diploma. But generally, my experience is that many entrepreneurs and managers (especially young, cocky ones like I was) discount the worth of lessons taught by failure. Because failure was the antonym of my ambition, it took years of experience to teach me the value of mistakes. “Business judgment” is a trait of effective, successful leaders. The only way to learn “judgment” is through experience. The experiences that made the most lasting effect on my success were not always successes.

I am not suggesting that one should plan to fail – that you start your day, week, month or year by looking forward to a disaster. I am suggesting that you not ignore the view from behind – that you finish your day, week, month and year by carefully understanding what did not work as well as accounting for what did. This is especially true when managing others, when developing talent in others to leverage your success. Few individuals get rich working alone. If you make those working for you (or with you) fear mistakes, what you get are monkeys with typewriters. They will eventually spell a word, but will never create value.

So, what is the value of mistakes in business? It is certainly not the effect -- it is the cause. Analyzing why something did not work, or how a mistake occurred, and using that “education” to make changes designed to make it work or prevent re occurrence. That is the value of failure. Encouraging innovation will likely not result in universal success with every attempt – mistakes are unavoidable. If you think you never make errors, you are mistaken. However, you can universally learn from every failure – and improve your chances of future success.

About the author: John Collins is an entrepreneur and business consultant based in Washington D.C. He formerly founded and served as CEO of Portsmouth Financial Group, Inc. and held senior positions at Knightsbridge Management LLC, Feltman & Co, DeStor Corporation, and The Home Depot.